On point. I don’t blame the rich and powerful for the existence of the treadmills though. As I see things, it’s the dynamics of markets themselves that drive societies into constructing and maintaining those treadmills. Those dynamics are complex processes and it’s just human to blame the infamous 1% for enforcing the treadmills on us. But they also just play their role in a game that markets dictate most of the rules for. And therefore — as individuals — they don’t have much more influence on market dynamics than the rest of us.

What we mostly observe is how those dynamics naturally favor the wealthy in gaining and executing power. And then only the most humble of us would not abuse this power to manifest the status quo. But humble people rarely get into power. Actually, modern democracies, as we designed them, keep them away from power. So we can’t expect much change coming from this direction.

Yet, as individuals we can still break out from the treadmills and I really like this article for making a concrete example of what a reflected first step looks like. But it must be mentioned that it requires a rare combination of privileges before we can really regain ownership over our lives again.

Disclaimer: I am the author of the linked article above. I posted it because I actually think that it’s potentially a good consecutive read for everyone who also liked this article.